Movie · 2015 · Music, Documentary · 1h 41m · English
Curator score: 7.7/10 (42.6K ratings)
Her story. Her voice.
Overview
The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.7/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.88/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 75
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Liz Garbus
Production
RadicalMedia, Story Syndicate
Cast
Nina Simone, Lisa Simone, Dick Gregory, Stanley Crouch, Elisabeth Henry-Macari, Ilyasah Shabazz
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A powerful, emotionally direct portrait of Nina Simone that succeeds most when it lets her voice, music, and political fury speak for themselves. It is a bit conventional as a documentary, but the archival material and Simone’s own testimony make it essential viewing.
Best for
viewers interested in civil rights-era culture and Black political history
fans of Nina Simone or emotionally intense music documentaries
people who value archival footage and firsthand testimony
audiences looking for an artist biography with political weight
Skip if
you want a formally adventurous or essayistic documentary
you are looking for a balanced, detached portrait of a complicated subject
you are sensitive to documentaries that touch on abuse and trauma without fully interrogating them
you prefer performance-heavy concert films over biographical storytelling
Overview
What Happened, Miss Simone? is at its strongest when it treats Nina Simone not as a legend to be polished, but as a force of nature shaped by genius, rage, grief, and political urgency. The film’s archival footage is often electrifying, and Simone’s own words give the documentary a charge that more conventional talking-head structure can’t quite contain.
Worth noting
It is also, by many accounts, frustratingly restrained for a subject this volatile. The film has a tendency to smooth over or under-examine the abuse and damage in Simone’s life, which leaves some of the emotional terrain only partially explored. Even so, the sheer force of her performances and the historical context around her activism make the film deeply affecting.
Bottom line
This is less a formally daring documentary than a vital one. It may not fully answer its own title’s question, but it captures enough of Simone’s brilliance and pain to justify the watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
jourdain searles · 499 likes
disturbingly uncritical about the abuse she suffered and centers her abuser too much
racheltuite (5★) · 281 likes
"How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?"
laird (4.5★) · 245 likes
Paraphrasing a subject: "Participating in civil rights activism was rough on any family. Now imagine being a genius woman when that wasn't something society was ready to recognize... Nina Simone wasn't at odd with the times. The times were at odds with her."
Heartbreaking and beautiful. It's not going to win any awards for form, but the archival content and research more than make up for its plainness. I would have watched this as a multi-part miniseries that expanded on… more
davidehrlich (3★) · 168 likes
far too staid for such a revolutionary woman, but Nina shines through via brilliant archival footage.
it's 2015. Jay Leno is off tv, we have flying meth drones, an orange man is speaker of the house. time to retire talking heads in docs.
russman (3★) · 154 likes
We've reached a point as a society where subtitles are needed to read cursive handwriting